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For Great Information on the Wines You LoveWed, 22 Jul 2015 15:43:26 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1‘Twas the Summer of 79!http://blog.beltramos.com/wine/twas-the-summer-of-79/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=twas-the-summer-of-79
http://blog.beltramos.com/wine/twas-the-summer-of-79/#commentsFri, 12 Oct 2012 21:57:38 +0000dbeltramohttp://blog.beltramos.com/?p=4462 I remember that summer, school was officially over and all I had to do was take a trip to the library, with only 4 books on the reading list, “Should be able to crank those out pretty quickly” I said to no one in particular.

I had three weeks before we went on holiday, three weeks to put the nose to the grind stone, write a few papers and spend three unencumbered weeks in the Dordogne, France.

Dickens, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Austen. I butchered my way through the first ones and elected to take Ms. Austen and her sensible ways to ‘Bon France’ a little fois gras will surely help me to make sense of the scholarly tome.

Well, there it was in chapter 30, a mention of a wine, a wine I was not familiar with:

“My dear,” said she, entering, “I have just recollected that I have some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor husband! How fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the world. Do take it to your sister.” *

Always up to a new quest I researched the wine (pre internet era) but the local wine merchants could offer little to enlighten me: I do wonder if my French vocab was the hindrance! Back in Blighty I had a touch more success, my future boss at ‘Peter Dominic’s Wine Merchants’ shed a tiny glimmer of light on the subject. Constantia was produced in South Africa, and so highly revered that the European Monarchs, Dukes and Bishops always had first dibbs.